Category: Language Arts: Reading

I thought it might be useful to pull a lot of our letter-activities together into one post, although we didn’t ever focus exclusively on letters. We generally had a theme or unit (astronomy, birds, volcanoes, bears, pirates, princesses and whatever else the kids were interested in at the time…) and we added in these types of activities to supplement whatever else was going on. So, just keep in mind that...

This activity was a huge hit with ED this past week. I chose some words from ED’s phonics readers and wrote them out on some shamrocks and taped them on popcycle sticks. I covered an empty cereal box with construction paper and wrote the words out on the box as well and used a knife to create a slit for the Popsicle sticks. I sat with ED each time she...

A couple of week or so ago I highlighted 14 picture books my girls have been enjoying lately. Today I thought I’d share a few of the chapter books we are enjoying. Each day during lunch I read a chapter from Chronicle of Narnia. Last week we finally finished The Horse and His Boy (affiliate link) and loved every minute of it! It seems that everyone knows and talks about The...

We read a lot of books here at the Homeschool Den. I thought I would highlight some of our current favorites. The girls have actually been reading a lot of the same books. I’ve been reading to the girls together at night and more often than not, DD climbs into my lap in front of the wood stove in the mornings when I’m reading to ED! The girls are 4...

I thought it was about time to write a post about how my preschooler spends her day. Free, Unstructured Play First of all, she spends a lot of time playing both indoors and out. Play helps kids learn to control their emotions and behavior. Play allows kids to be creative. It helps them learn discipline, resist impulses and develop resiliency. During make-believe play children engage in ‘private speech.’ They talk to...

Plato: Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. This past summer we chose not to participate in our library’s reading program. At one point, we were chatting with a librarian and she asked if the kids were doing the library’s summer reading program. She was shocked when I told her we weren’t participating this year. “May I ask why?” she wanted to know. I had a...

Sometimes homeschooling is wonderful packed with endless projects and terrific successes. I like blogging about all that. But sometimes life just isn’t like that. This past week was really challenging. We were just coming back from a trip. Who doesn’t struggle to get caught up with life after being on the road? Plus more or less as soon as we got back, Hubby left for a business trip. So while...

In our daily biography a few days ago we learned about Aesop, a Greek slave and story teller who is said to have lived 620-565 BC. Each fable contains a cautionary, ageless moral. And just in time for us, the Library of Congress released Aesop’s Fables Interactive Book. When you click on the link you can either read the fables on your computer or you can get the app for...

It’s been a while since I talked about the books we’re reading. We have lots of books around, plus we check out lots of books from our local library (50+ at a time!). I thought I’d highlight ten books that have been on the repeated request list. While we’ve read other books in the past couple of weeks, these are the books that I have read again and again (and...

If your child needs to review some grammar rules, here are a few online games he/she can play: Magical Capitals: Help the fairy find all the words that should be capitalized. Comma Chameleon: Help the chameleon punctuate sentences. Blown Away: Determine which letter in the sentence should be capitalized. Beat the Clock: Apostrophe practice. Rewrite the sentence by adding an apostrophe and/or s. Play your Caps Right: Find the words...

One of the things I’ve been doing since returning from our trip is to continue planning for our homeschool. I came across an email from ReadingTeacher.com. [Added in 9 months Later: These are no longer available for free from ReadingTeacher. Instead I wound up visiting Dr. Mariott’s website and downloaded them from there. We wound up using all 52 of these readers with ED, my youngest. They really worked well...

We are using the Bob Books to help ED learn to read. She is just learning to sound out CVC words. While my other two kids learned to read early (age 3) using the Bob Book series (and others), my third child has her own pace and style of learning. She is excited about writing words, loves to color, and has amazing pencil skills. I made these worksheets for her. These would never (never,...

Sometimes it’s a bit hard to describe how homeschooling works. Lots of things happen simultaneously and our read aloud time is the best example of this. This semester our read aloud time has been mostly centered around American history (though we also read a book about Isaac Newton). We were studying the American West and so we read the Sign of the Beaver, Little House in the Big Woods, and The...

Hands-On Activities, Printables, Encouragement, and More!

Hi! I’m Liesl!

Do you believe education can be exciting, inspiring, and full of joy? We do too!
I love the quote by William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." It's about getting the kids involved, engaged, and fired up about learning (while juggling the rest of life too!)
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Earth Science Packet, 150 pgs

Layers of the Atmosphere Packet

Digestive System Packet and Activities (100+ pages)

Cells Unit (100+ pages)

100+ Page Cells Packet: Organelles, Plant vs. Animal Cells, How Proteins are Made, Cells of the Body and more. My kids were ages 7, 9 and 11 when we first did this unit. Then it was updated when we did it again when they were 10, 13, 15.

Simple Machines Packet – Worksheets Lapbook Activities

Civics & Government Unit

World Facts Packet

Do your kids know the 4 largest countries? Which countries have the most people? The longest river? This packet covers basic world and U.S. facts.